Page 93 of The Alpha's Bullied Rejected Mate

After tucking him in bed, he stood, quietly closing Riley’s door behind them.

They turned to face each other in the hush of the hallway. The silence returned, but this time it pressed between them like something alive.

She opened her mouth to say something, just as he did.

They both stopped.

Marcus took a step back. The tension in his body was a taut string. He cleared his throat and glanced toward the door. “I should… probably go.”

She nodded frantically. “Yeah. Of course.”

But neither of them moved.

He took a half-step back again, like the distance could save him. Save them from themselves.

“I—” she started, then stopped.

Marcus rubbed the back of his neck. “Goodnight, Athena.”

His voice came low, tighter than he meant before he turned on his heels.

“Marcus.”

He froze.

Her voice was barely a whisper. But it wrecked him.

“Fuck it,” he muttered, cursing violently under his breath.

And then he was in front of her.

One hand slid to the back of her neck, the other found her waist, and he kissed her—desperately and deeply.

There was no performance to it. No slow seduction.

It was aching. Starved.

She gasped softly into his mouth, her fingers gripping the front of his shirt like she needed something solid to hold onto.

And Marcus—he couldn’t stop.

His hand remained at her lower back as he moved without breaking the kiss, guiding her gently, but insistently, backward through the doorway of her room. His hand reached behind her blindly, searching for the knob.

Her fingers beat him to it, fumbling for the latch. It clicked open, and the door gave way, creaking slightly as it swung behind them.

He followed her in blindly, his world reduced to the press of her mouth against his and the warmth of her skin beneath his hands.

And as the door shut behind them with a soft thud, the night outside faded.

There was only this. Them.

Marcus broke their kiss as he lifted a hand to cup her face, brushing a damp strand of hair from her temple. “Tell me to stop,” he whispered, his voice rough. “And I will.”

She didn’t.

Instead, she pulled him in again for a kiss, and that was her answer.

Marcus kissed her back. Hard and dirty. Like he wanted to taste her soul.